


how's the weather (am i better?)

by Idestroyedtheworldoops



Series: e·mo·tion [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Kravitz is just there cause he's the Grim Reaper and they're in Death Jail, Not The Keetz Theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 15:16:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13010520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idestroyedtheworldoops/pseuds/Idestroyedtheworldoops
Summary: "you know those wayward souls I've been imprisoning?well, I'm giving them some time off for good behavior." : death turns out be less of an end than you'd expect





	how's the weather (am i better?)

Lydia and Edward have been sitting cross-legged and facing each other for longer than either of them can really tell. Living about three times as long as what is average for their race has already screwed up their concept of time by a decent amount, but something about it is just _off_ , here in the Astral Plane.

They wonder if time even exists, here. There isn't much of a reason for it too, they guess, in the afterlife.

Whether it's been hours, or months, or seconds on the Prime Material Plane, Lydia and Edward have been through about ten sitting and standing positions since they arrived in the Death Prison, simply for lack of _anything else_ to occupy their time.

It has been a long time since they so much as entertained the prospect of dying, not to mention what it would be like to end up in the afterlife's penalty box, but even when they had considered it, they never expected _this_. They expected some kind of...

Torture? Reeducation? Long-winded lecture on the error of their ways?

Whatever they expected, it was not to be shoved into a featureless cell the size of a broom closet and just _left_ for eternity. The shift from having the power and freedom to create anything and everything they could conceive of on whim, to drowning in gray scale and not being able to so much as walk five feet in any direction, has been rough.

It could be _terribly_ worse, of course. If they were separated, if neither of them knew where the other was or were able to see them, they know they would be screaming and pounding against the walls and refusing to be quiet or still for the sake of anything, dignity be damned.

They are together, though, and that is enough for them to be content, but that does not stop them from being so dreadfully, dreadfully _bored_.

Edward is staring at a specific spot on the not-stone floor, pretending to breathe for lack of anything else to do in here, before he finally says, unprompted, "It wasn't just the umbrella."

Lydia flinches at the mention of that tacky red parasol. Memories rush to the front of her mind, of the terrifying seconds when Edward was being beaten around inside it, the split-second of relief when it spit him back out. The soul crushing despair as he fell apart, the feeling of dust in her not-hands that she doesn't think she'll forget for all of eternity.

She blinks for a couple of seconds, casually taking his hand where it had been sitting on his knee, before she's collected herself enough to answer, "What do you mean?"

"I don't think the umbrella itself would have been lethal," he says, "There was a person in there. Another lich."

Lydia blinks again. "What, a fucking umbrella guardian?"

Edward snort-laughs, and it's hard to believe how much that actually raises her spirits. "Probably? I can't be sure why she was in there. It was all very confusing."

Lydia's snickering a little bit, now.

"I tried asking her who she was and where we were, but she just kept saying she was going to kill me!" Edward continues, and Lydia falls silent. "Over and over again, as she was. Doin' the damn the thing. Truth in advertising, she _did_ kill me."

Edward keeps laughing, seemingly not so affected by the memory, before he finally sees her staring and frowns.

"Lyd?" he says, but she barely hears him.

Lydia stares ahead at him, the fresh memories of her brother's death overcoming her again. This time, though, instead of only despair, there is cold _fury_ enlaced with them.

This whole time, she'd been attributing their defeat to a machine, to the objective automatic reaction of a mindless magical object. The idea that there was _intention_ behind it, that someone made the _conscious decision_ to kill her brother…

"Lydia?"

She's gripping his hand what would be painfully tight if they even sort of had nerves as ghosts. They don't, so she takes his other hand, too.

"Do you know who they were?" she asks quietly.

He hesitates for a moment, before he shakes his head. "She wouldn't say." He pauses for a moment, before continuing, "She said we were hurting her brother."

"That doesn't narrow it down," she says. They were 'hurting' about twenty-five people at once, at the time, and she doesn't remember their gender distribution, but any number of them could have been brothers.

Edward purses his lips. He can still feel her hands clenched around his, in the distant, ethereal way ghosts can feel. He hadn’t meant to upset her, and grapples for a moment with whether saying more will help or hurt, before finally continuing, "She looked the same as the lich that was outside. The one that was using our energy."

She raises her eyebrows, and that's a good sign. Her face will freeze when she gets lost in bad thoughts, a lot of the time. "That could be it, then," she says, before she pauses, then frowns. "Except for the fact that that was perhaps the _only_ person involved in this who we'd done absolutely _nothing_ to, up to that point."

Her grip has loosened enough at this point that he can pull a hand away to snap in frustration.

"That's right," he says, shaking his head.

There's a somewhat tense pause as she racks her memories for other candidates- there's really too many, and they all blur together in her head- until Edward hums, and taps her. His expression is sagely, when she focuses back on him.

"I wonder if most liches get stuck in some kind of robe, for eternity," he says, and she finally smiles again.

"What do you think would have been worse," he continues, "The black we were stuck with or that red?"

"Oh," Lydia makes a face, and picks at the now light gray robes on her soul. Still not great, but at least there's a kind of shimmer to them, now. "I think I would have to stick with the black, really."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she says, looking back up, "Our robes were _awful_ , but at least they lent to the aesthetic they were trying to embody," she lets go of the robe and sighs with distaste. "You can't be a scary undead goth if you look like a fantasy fire engine."

He laughs again, and she relaxes a little, but red clothes makes her think of their Heart Attack pantsuits, red and silver and gold because after they got themselves out of their horrible, horrible robes they swore to _never again_ wear solid colors, and she aches a little more for what they've just lost.

What was just _taken_ from them.

They've never liked the idea of revenge. _Revenge is for people looking to get hurt in the same way twice,_  She and Edward used to tell their brother. _Once you can escape a problem, just leave it behind. Never risk yourself trying to settle a score._ They lived by these words too, even if the philosophy was mostly developed from watching unfortunate souls' sad attempts at getting back at them for one rigged game or another.

They've always looked down on revenge-seekers. That's what this person, this other lich, was, too, it looks like.

But oh, what she would give to make them hurt, right now. She wants nothing more in this bleak moment of existence than make them _suffer_ for what they did to Edward, for being the reason she's now had to watch _both_ of her brothers _die_ -

“Do you feel that?”

Lydia is pulled out of her thoughts not just by Edward's voice, but by the sensation he's referring to. Lydia looks up at her brother, and mirrors his slight frown. “Yeah…”

They wait for a second. Nothing happens.

"Weird," she says.

And just as she says it, there is a shift in the energy of the Astral Plane. And then,

The green light. And then, the blue.

A one hundred year long quest instantly becomes a part of their thoughts, as if it was something they'd always known.

And that's nothing, to them; a century is such a short period of time, in the scape of their lives. It's not the bulk or even the suddenness of the information that has them sitting up straight and staring wide-eyed at each other. Rather, it is it's star players, all of whom they recognize, but one.

The only one who remains nameless to them is the captain, who neither of them linger on. There is the woman who'd carried the Bulwark Staff, who'd tried and failed to claim the Animus Bell; the three players who'd cheated at their game, with their accomplice who'd hijacked Lydia and Edward's energy; and...

Huh.

Lydia remembers one of her final moments; she remembers wincing as a few of their mannequins climbed out of the audience and started pummeling the body Edward was inhabiting, because she wasn't taking the fight seriously at all and lost control of them to one of their opponents. She knew they would scrap the body after they were done with it anyways, but he was in there _now_. He could feel _pain_ in there, and that thought got her mad enough to try and kill the caster with a wrecking ball, but when that didn't land thanks to their new lich friend, she decided to take things more simple.

She did feel satisfied when Taako's body hit the floor with a _thump_ , still twitching from the aftershocks of her _death bolt_. Even more so when the mannequins rushed away from Edward to kneel by their fallen master.

 _Knocked out by a cantrip,_ she'd thought, laughing to herself. She'd barely noticed his umbrella rolling slowly back into his hand, from where he'd dropped it when he fell.

"... _huh_ ," Edward says, still staring ahead at Lydia, and pulling her back to the present once again.

"Death Bolt," she whispers.

"Bad Luck," he adds.

They both recall weakening the holdings on a chunk of machinery and watching it crush their contestant. (These ones were a lot more capable than they'd calibrated for, and the fact they were doing so well in a forsaked match was a little embarrassing. It was just about time to even the scales.)

"Huh," she echoes, and Edward nods.

There is a long pause.

"I would have done the same thing, if I was her," Edward finally says.

Lydia looks at him, at a loss. She can't argue. She wouldn't have believed anything could do it, but it's hard to hate this person, now. Lydia doesn't have to imagine what it felt like, watching helplessly as her brother hurt.

She wanted to make her suffer. But it looks she already has.

Finally she says, "I would, too."

"You have before," he notes.

She actually smiles, recalling bitter gamblers and unlucky patrons who'd tried attacking her brothers in retribution, people who she'd always crushed without effort.

"I have."

*

After what could be a long while or just a second, they notice that for the first time since they've been in here, the spirits in the other cells are shifting around, even muttering to each other.

"Did everyone just here that?" Edward asks Lydia, not loud enough that any of the ghosts in question could answer.

"I don't see why they wouldn't have," she replies, "It doesn't seem like a message that would be localized to us."

They consider calling out across the hall, to try and strike up conversation just for the sake of it now that anyone's feeling chatty, when all at once the whispers turn to hissing.

Edward's first assumption is that they've done something, somehow, broken some kind of unspoken decorum. Then he realizes the ill will is directed at a figure walking up the hallway, just now coming into sight.

Though a literal robed skeleton, it looks far more corporeal than any of them. As it comes closer, and the hissing grows louder and more hateful, they see that it's holding a scythe, and they look at each other in disbelief.

"The Grim Reaper?" Edward calls out.

They seem to get his attention, if only because they're the only ones who aren't literally making snake noises at him.

Lydia and Edward look from the Grim Reaper back at each other. All the other ghosts' continued hissing should probably be taken as a sign that this person is a force to be reckoned with. Despite that, neither of them can keep from bursting into laughter.

"Where have you been? We were alive for like two thousand years!" Edward says.

"I didn't think the Grim Reaper was real," Lydia says, laughing still.

"You must be pretty bad at your job," Edward says. They continue giggling, and realize that some of the other ghosts have stopped hissing in favor of quietly laughing with them.

It's hard to read emotions from a skeleton's face- they know this fact intimately- but the Grim Reaper still manages to look bemused.

"Well, if that's a-"

The Grim Reaper is cut off by a shout of _"I loved Fantasy Billy and Mandy!"_ from a cell off to their left.

"That was a good scroll," one of the other ghosts calls out. They think most of the other inmates have abandoned their hissing in favor of snickering by now.

"Easy crowd," Lydia whispers.

"Did you all here that?" The Grim Reaper says over the noise, in the most  _horrible_ cockney accent.

Once again, at first they think he's talking about them, until he continues:

"The story? The songs?"

The laughter dies down a little, in favor of the same muttering that had been going on before the reaper arrived. He seems to take this as an answer.

"Then you should know that thing, that Hunger, is _here_. I saw it outside," he says, "It almost overcame me."

The muttering rises in volume. Lydia and Edward look at each other, and they don't have to say it to know they both remember another force that tried to pull at each of them outside. They can still feel the faint tug of it, continuing to call to them even after however long they've been sitting around in here.

"The entire world is in peril," he continues, "And my usual method of travel between the planes seems to have been cut off. I need a way to get back to the Prime Material Plane, and I thought that somewhere among all of you, I might find a method that still worked."

"You aren't _encouraging_ us to escape, Reaper?" a few voices from off to their right say, and Lydia and Edward are a little startled to realize it seems to be many voices speaking in unison.

The skeleton man takes an unneeded breath. "I need your help. And I will make sure you are compensated for it."

The muttering becomes a cacophony of full-volume voices. Then, the hall goes completely silent, and Lydia and Edward can see a silver glow creeping through the cells.

It begins somewhere far to their left, reaching every ghost in every cell and brightening their natural glow, blurring out their features in the process. They're both a little scared by the time it reaches them, but they don't feel any change.

 _Get on the wavelength,_ they here a hundred whispers in unison. _We require full participation._

"What?" Lydia asks.

 _Just let go,_ it continues, _You might like it._

Lydia and Edward have taken each other's hands at this point. They look at each other, close their nonexistent eyes, and relax.

At first they still feel nothing, and then they feel _nothing_. The little sensation they'd had is completely gone, they can't even feel each other, but before either of them can scream, the whole world melts into white.

***

When they come back to themselves, they are scattered among hundreds of other ghosts on top of a large, blue disk.

They aren't far apart, and they find each other again quickly. The memories of being that big amalgamation of souls are fuzzy; they remember being a part of a one-track hive mind, doing a lot of fighting and not a lot of thinking.

"That," Edward grumbles, "Was _extremely_ unpleasant and I did _not_ like it."

Lydia nods, and hooks her ethereal arm through his.

Looking around, the world's been brought to near wreckage in the... eighteen-ish hours (assuming multiple days haven't passed) that they've been gone. If that's Neverwinter in the distance then they actually aren't too far from home, but that's a heavy _if_ , because even from this distance the parts of the city that they can see are in ruins, with pillars of smoke floating up from the rubble.

Lydia remembers the young- well, not young _anymore_ , she recalls with mirth- ruler of Neverwinter, that had been in Wonderland on their last day. He was probably released when they were defeated, so she wonders how he's dealing with all of this. _Pretty good, it doesn't seem._

Still, in the crowds of living people they can make out, they see only celebration. The relief of being alive is stronger than the weight of the destruction, in these people's minds, they suppose.

They can't relate.

Lydia's and Edward's gazes wander in another direction, and- oh.

They were right. They recognize the treeline of The Felicity Wilds in the distance. There are a few smaller columns of smoke rising up from various points, but otherwise it looks unchanged. They aren't surprised; centuries of monster infestation has made the Wilds pretty resilient.

Lydia and Edward exchange a look, and they both understand what the other is thinking.

_We can go._

They could run- there are hundreds, maybe thousands of ghosts assembled here, no one's going to notice right off the bat if a couple slip away. They're sure someone or another has done it already. They died so recently, too, (not to mention while everything had gone to shit,) so they might not even be in whatever records that the Death Police or whomever keep, yet. They can disappear without a trace, and once they find some magical channels and renew their Lich rituals, (their Lichuals), they can return to their former power. It will be as if nothing has changed.

Or.

They both glance below them through the sheet of blue, to the Astral Plane, a different possibility forming in their minds.

"The Grim Reaper talked about _compensation_ ," Lydia says, staring through at the sea of lights.

"I doubt money holds any value in the land of the dead," Edward replies, staring down at the sea as well.

They look at each other again, long and hard, this time.

They can only think of one thing that Death's jailer might reward his prisoners with. The thought of it sends both of their hearts reeling with a hope they haven't felt in two thousand years.

They can run and thrive and spend eternity in the way they designed for themselves. Or, they can stay and die and see him again.

It's not much of a decision.

They look around at the sky and the people and the burning cities, but their eyes rest on the forest they've called home for more than a millennium.

They take each other's hands, and without looking away, they make their ethereal forms _pop_ down through the sheet of blue.

*

Countless other souls follow them back on to the Astral Plane, and the descent looks like some kind of very slow meteor shower. They continue looking up at it for a long time. The portal between the material plane and this one looks much less stable on this side; in fact, when they turn their heads a certain way, they can't see it at all. It looks like it's clipped in, like an error in an illusion, more dark blue jutting out of the Astral Plane's dark, calm sky.

Despite this, there's probably still a chance they could find their way back through it. Now that they've decided against it the temptation comes back tenfold, and it is so strong for a moment that they could almost compare it to the Bell. But there is no ancient magical fragment fueling this. The idea of staying alive together has fueled them for the last two thousand years, and just giving that up seems unfathomable.

There is something more important, though. Something that had been fueling them long before that.

They both feel the other's spectral hand tightening, and they finally look away. The sea here is almost a mirror of the sky, dark and calm and filled with lights. It looks nothing like it did on their first trip in, when it was slicked with shining black oil from the Hunger. They look up from it at each other, before beginning to float their way down.

There must be millions of souls surrounding them, more than they can count, more than they could sort through in a lifetime. They have much longer than that, though. They have forever.

Just as they touch down on the water, they both feel a disturbance.

"Do you...?" Edward asks, and Lydia nods. It's an uncomfortable tugging sensation, that's almost familiar but hard to place. They both frown. Lydia almost has her finger on it, and then-

A blur.

Their hands are still locked, but they're almost pulled away from each other as the world rushes around them. They would probably be sick if they weren't dead, Edward thinks, leaning against the wall as everything stills.

Wait. The wall?

" _Fuck_ ," Lydia says, straightening in front of him. About four feet in front of him, the entire length of the tiny space they've been spirited into.

The same space they inhabited hours ago.

"Oh no," he says, taking in their surroundings.

They stand there frozen for a moment, until Lydia slumps, tugging on the Astral manifestation of her hair with her free hand.

"How could we think we could trust _the death cops_ ," she groans, "We are ancient undead necromancers, for goodness sakes."

"Stupid," Edward says, running his hand over his face.

"Yeah," Lydia agrees, slumping against the wall.

Just like that, hope blinks out of their sights again. They stare at each other from across the small cell, watching the light of it go out of each other's faces.

They begin to drift closer to each other, into much the same position they were in right after they both arrived, when they resolved they were fine living- _existing_ \- like this. Lydia's mind drifts back to her brother's words; _So this is it, then?_ he'd said, in a jokingly philosophical voice. _An eternity of imprisonment, for attempting an eternity of life._

She'd laughed, and rested her head on his shoulder, then. Now, she grits her teeth and pulls away.

"You know what?" she says, looking Edward in the eyes. "Fuck this. We _are_ getting out of here."

"What?" he asks, blinking. "How?"

"That-" she pauses, and frowns. "Those?" She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. "The ghost from earlier mentioned escaping. It's not impossible. And if anyone can do it, we can."

"You really think so?" Edward asks, light slowly returning to his face.

She takes his hands again, and smiles. "We're the oldest un-living things in the world, remember? We're better at cheating death than anyone else in the game. A bunch of soul-proof rock and steel isn't gonna hold us," she says, motioning her head toward the wall.

Slowly, he begins to nod. "The only real hill would be finding something to channel magic with. Once we could use Emotion again..." he looks around at the walls and bars surrounding them, the countless cells running either way down the infinite hall. "We could probably unmake this whole place, with all the suffering coming out of here."

"And give the death cops something else to focus on, before they come a'calling to us again," Lydia says.

"It may put a damper on our advertising practices, though, to have some kind of warrant out for our arrest," Edward notes.

Lydia snorts. "They did a pretty poor job of finding us the last two millennia. I wouldn't count on them being too competent in that."

They continue brainstorming, and a path begins to form in their minds. The only real problem is where to find a wand, and there are a few answers. If the warden keeps trophies from old bounties that would be lucky, or maybe if some old undead was brought in before they were completely stripped of their powers they could figure out how to lift something from them. They aren't entirely sure what the process for bringing in live caught death criminals is, but it's possible they could slip something that would work from someone being brought past their cell. They are proficient with slight of hand, after all.

They'll be on the lookout for lines thrown blindly into the Astral Plane, too, necromantic novices fishing around in the afterlife for someone to teach them old secrets or long-banned techniques. They're always up for a good quid-pro-quo.

However they manage it, after that's done getting home shouldn't be difficult at all. They might even have time to look around the place, before they leave.

They might even have time to find someone to take along.

That thought has gotten them into more trouble than they can list, at this point, but they can't help it. They can't give up on him. They won't. Even if another thousand years passes them by, they won't forget him. Even if the world changes irreversibly, if it gets put through another spellplague or time of troubles or hunger scare, they'll still be looking for the next best way to get him back. Always.

Forever.

*

"Emotion is a form of necrotic energy, though," Edward says, tilting his head. They still can't make hide nor hair of the way time passes in here, but he thinks they've been spitballing ideas for quite a while now. "It is possible this place could be specially reinforced against it."

"Nothing's ever been prepared for Emotion, Edward," Lydia says, "And even if it was, they'd have to have their assets stacked pretty high in one specific direction to get enough power to hold it off. If they were devoting so much energy to blocking necromancy specifically, they'd be bound to have holes somewhere else. A knock might even work, at that point. And there's always the old 'cast invisibility and make it look you've escaped so that they'll open the door and you can _actually_ escape' trick."

"A classic," he nods, remembering the couple of times they had to use that back when they were alive.

"I'll keep that in mind," a voice says, and they both jump.

There is a man outside their cell, now. They could swear he hadn't been there a moment before, but they hadn't seen or heard him approach.

Edward blinks a few times. "Who are you?"

The man raises a dark eyebrow at him. He looks human, wearing a suit that would be nice if it weren't so plain. Really, just black with gold trim? That's all we're going with here? He could at least throw in some blue or red, but even that would leave much to be desired.

And the black _cloak_ he's wearing over it is just, a non-starter. The sour expression on his face doesn't help either, even if it can't be denied the man is notably attractive. For a goth, at least.

"I'm surprised you don't recognize the star of 'Fantasy Billy and Mandy'," he says sarcastically, in that same horrible, horrible accent, and it clicks.

"Oh my god," they say in unison, and dissolve into giggles before he can get another word in.

"Were you actually in that?" Lydia asks through her laughter.

He doesn't grace her with an answer, instead clearing his throat and looking at them with an expression like he would literally rather be anywhere else.

"Hey, can anyone do that?" Edward asks, attempting to stop laughing at the poor man so they can have some kind of productive conversation. "Switch back and forth between looking all ghosty and looking like a flesh person?"

"No," he replies flatly, "The ability to appear as living is a privilege reserved for the Raven Queen's emissaries."

"Shame," Lydia says, quieting as well.

" _Anyways_ ," he says, taking a long sigh, and pulling a large bound book from his cloak.

He flips open the book to a page near the very back that must be either very new or very old, and begins to read.

"Edward and Lydia Klow, children of Margaret Klow and Alton Jonas, and half siblings to Keaton Klow," he reads off, and they both start. They'd never heard their father's name before. They never knew it.

"You have been charged with thirty-six thousand five hundred and forty-two instances of attempts to resurrect a soul that has passed on, as well as taking advantage of unholy magic and violating the natural order in an attempt to make yourselves immortal, and," he blinks at the page for a moment, then makes a noise halfway between a sigh and a whistle.

He continues, "And setting the _new record_ for the longest uninterrupted evasion of one's natural death. Do you deny any of these accusations?"

They blink their eyes over to each other, still reeling a little from that first sentence, but they manage to shrug.

"That all tracks," Edward says, looking back over at the reaper.

"Alright then," he says, closing his book, then looking intensely at the both of them.

"The two of you, even outside of your necromantic crimes, have done some truly despicable things over the course of your lives," he says, "And I would be perfectly content to let you rot in here for your full sentences. But I am a man of my word, and I promised every soul who agreed to help me a reward for their assistance. So I am going to offer you a choice."

Lydia and Edward glance at each other. They weren't actively tricked, then, just quick to assume. Pity.

"The majority of inmates who helped re-form the Legion have been rewarded with early release or shortened sentencing. _You,_ however, have an upfront sentence that is so astronomically long, shortening it by the same amount as all the others would hardly make a dent. So,-"

"Wait," Edward says, holding up a hand for him to stop. "Sentence?"

The reaper blinks down at him. "Yes?"

"I thought we were just... here forever," Lydia says, raising her eyebrows at him.

The reaper sighs again, and shakes his head. "No, that would be unprecedented. Not that most of the things that you two did _weren't_ unprecedented, but," he shrugs, pulling his book back out again.

"So. You can have a hundred years taken off of a sentence that looks like it would still amount to nearly two thousand. Or," he says, turning a page, "We could figure out something a little more immediate."

Lydia and Edward look at each other again. _This isn't going to matter_ , they're both thinking, escape still hot on their minds. Still, though, what reason is there to turn down a few perks in the meantime?

"Okay," Edward says, folding his hands in front of him, and looking thoughtfully at the reaper. "Can you make us look hot again?"

"Not that we aren't still extremely attractive,” Lydia adds quickly, “It's just the gray scale, and these _robes_ ," she elaborates, in her most tormented voice.

The reaper just looks incredulously at them, but they do hear some prisoner laughing to their left.

"Rude," Edward mutters.

The laughing quiets so fast it makes him blink.

"We are one hundred percent serious," Lydia says haughtily, also in that general direction.

"Well," the reaper says, "That could certainly be arranged, if that is what you desire, but I did have something already in mind."

They look at him skeptically as he beckons something to the left of their cell. They crane their necks to try and get a glimpse of what it is, just as it glides into view.

They are ashamed of the fact that it takes a whole second for them to freeze, their eyes locking in on this figure with recognition.

The expression on his face is subdued, staring at them with a strange mix of concern and wonder. He is colorless, instead of grayscale, a blank white outline of what should be violet shoulder length hair, light brown skin and eyes, and the pink and cerulean ruffles of that puffy-sleeved doublet he always insisted they make him a new version of when he'd grow out of it.

Besides the color and the open eyes, the lack of sweat sticking his bangs to his forehead or pain scrunching up his face, he looks _exactly_ like he did the last time they saw him.

"This is the person you attempted to bring back from the dead thirty-six thousand five hundred and forty-two times, yes?" The Grim Reaper says, watching them over their little brother's shoulder. They can't answer him, and he seems to take this as answer enough.

Keats is watching them too, that same concern and wonder still there on his face but with a bit of astonishment thrown in. He takes a bafflingly hesitant step forward, placing both his hands on the bars that stand between them, and they finally break out of their trance, each of them setting a hand over one of his in sync. He hesitates for one more moment, before he grips their hands and pulls them right up against the bars at the same time he takes another step forward and wraps them into a shaky hug.

Their arms are around him as well instantly, and they are close as they can be pressed up against the decently-spaced bars. Their faces can almost touch each other's shoulders.

"I take it your decision is made, then?" The reaper asks, and they both nod without looking at him.

"I'll be watching time on the material plane," he continues, turning his attention to Keats, and this gets their attention.

"Let it be noted, as well, that should there be any attempts at insubordination on your parts," the reaper says as they glance up at him, "This privilege will be immediately revoked."

 _Escape_ , they fill in, as he disappears with a sound like tearing fabric.

Then suddenly the bars evaporate and they're flush against each other, and they can't stop themselves from sobbing, now, in the wracking hollow way that only ghosts can.

"Are you alright?" Keats asks.

They raise their heads to look at their brother in astonishment.

"We're _fine_ ," Edward tries to say, but he isn't sure it's audible through the mix of crying and the half-laughter spurred by the question.

"Are _you_ okay?" Lydia asks, trying to brush his hair out of his face. "What were you already doing in here?"

"I wasn't locked up or anything, don't worry," he says, "Kravitz just brought me in here to see you."

" _You_ were the one who laughed," Edward says.

Keats laughs again, and their hearts ache. How could they have not recognized that sound?

"I'm sorry," he says, "It wasn't at your expense, I promise."

He stops laughing, and glances at the ground. "I wasn't sure what to expect, after all this time. I guess I was just happy you were still..." He sighs. "You."

"Oh, Keats," Lydia says, more tears pricking her eyes as she pulls both her brothers into another hug.

"What _are_ you wearing, though?" he says into her shoulder.

They both break out into laughter.

" _Oh_ , long story," Edward says. They stop laughing, both of them sobering at the memory.

"They were the required uniforms of our necromantic circle," Lydia says, outright.

Keats droops.

"It's true, then?" he asks, looking at them with an unreadable expression, and the mood of their conversation suddenly shifts. "All of it?"

"What, the thirty six thousand discreet resurrection attempts?" Edward asks. He wants to make some kind of sarcastic remark, but just ends up whispering,

"Yes. Of course."

They're all silent for a moment, stricken with tension and discomfort from the new elephant in the room, until Lydia finally addresses it.

"Why wouldn't you come back to us?" She asks, trying and failing to hide the hurt and confusion in her voice.

Because that's the only reason the spell, all the different spells they tried, wouldn't work. They require the cooperation of the soul that's being resurrected. They've spent more than a thousand years refusing to believe it, convinced they must have made some error, left one thing out every single time they tried, but the expression on Keats' face doesn't leave room for any more denial.

"Did we do something?" Edward asks, trying hard not to let his voice break again.

"No," Keats says hurriedly, then shakes his head.

"I didn't want you to end up in here," he says, slumping his shoulders again. "I'd seen people getting thrown into the Stockade, locked away and separated from everyone else. I couldn't stand the idea of that being you," he pauses, looking around at the dull gray walls. "I thought if I kept rejecting you you'd just stop, before anyone noticed."

"We would never," Lydia whispers.

He looks confused. "Didn't you, though?"

"The spell ran out," Edward says, "That's the only reason we stopped trying. Resurrection doesn't work on people who've been dead for longer than a century."

There's a long moment of silence between them.

"Oh," he says, quietly.

"I regretted it, eventually," he continues, "If that makes it any better. A few years after you stopped calling there was a woman who got placed in the Stockade, who tried to sell you out in exchange for early release. Liches were even rarer back then than they are now, so the reapers jumped at the chance to eliminate two at once, but you weren't where she said you'd be. Mom and and I were notified of it 'cause we were your closest relations from life, in case you tried to contact one of us, but it was like you'd disappeared from the face of the planet."

“Mom?” Lydia interjects, blinking.

“Yeah,” he says, “We’ve been there for each other while we’ve both been here. She’s doing pretty well. And she’s...” he pauses, like he’s uncomfortable with or embarrassed of what he’s going to say next.

“She’s great, I love her, but I didn’t know her, I was so young when she died. Not like I knew you. All I really wanted was to have you guys back," he chokes, "And you never showed up. I waited centuries and centuries longer than any natural humanoid can live and I hated myself for never going back to you because they said you were immortal now and I was never going to see you again-”

“No,” Lydia cuts him off, quiet and horrified.

“Oh no,” Edward whispers.

They pull him into a hug as he starts crying again, and they both almost immediately follow suit.

“You don’t have anything to make better,” Lydia whispers, “You didn’t do anything wrong. We did.”

“We’re sorry,” Edward whispers in turn.

“We’re so sorry,” they both echo in just-off unison, and in that moment they mean it. They don’t feel sorry for anything _else_ they’ve done, not yet. But as their brother cries in their arms they feel an overwhelming remorse at the realization that they’ve hurt him, that _they_ separated them, that he spent centuries thinking it was his fault.

And that is a start.

“I wanted you to die,” he whispers, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I tried to help them find you. I tried to help them kill you, I’m so sorry, I just wanted to see you again.”

“Hush,” Lydia says, “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” he insists, but Edward shushes him this time.

“It is,” Edward says, “We forgive you. It’s okay,” he laughs through his spectral tears, “We were the ones who did worse while we were apart, I promise. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of, _certainly_ not in comparison.”

*

They stay together for while, until Keats finally pulls away, wiping his face even though there aren’t any real, non-ghost tears to be rid of. His face just reverts back to normal after his emotions settle. They assume it’s the same for themselves.

“The pain dungeon too, then, huh?” he says once he’s collected himself.

They both sputter.

“Well,” Lydia says;

“ _Well_ ,” Edward echoes;

“I wouldn’t use those words _specifically_ ,” Lydia continues.

Keats shrugs. “They’re the words Kravitz used,” he says with a half-smile on his face. “How would you describe it?”

“Uh,” Edward says, exchanging a look with Lydia, “Well, we… we had a great aesthetic going on, first of all.”

“Much too upbeat to be labeled a ‘dungeon’,” Lydia says.

“And sure, yes, we were extracting the negative emotions from people, and that involved a fair amount of _pain_ , on the contestants’ parts. And sure, sometimes people... died. A lot of the times, maybe most of the times, but! We did it in order to fuel our lives and powers, and we did it in a very cool and fun setting!”

“Uh huh,” Keats says, smiling in full now at their attempts to excuse themselves.

“Yes, honestly if a person is going to die anywhere it's almost definitely preferable to die in such a happening and well designed environment,” Lydia says, then thinks for two seconds about it and vividly remembers the neon lights and music they still had going when Edward died and when she followed suit, how the dissonance between the setting and the heartbreak and despair had only made it all worse, and she realizes that’s likely how most of the people who died in their game over the years felt.

She doesn’t say any of that, though. She’s still trying to make a case.

“Do you remember the track you made us for our hundredth birthday?” Edward asks.

Keats blinks and stops smiling, pursing his lips while he thinks.

“Wonderland?” he says.

They smile in sync.

“Think, the feeling of that song,” Lydia says, “As a place.”

“Is that what you were going for?” he asks.

“Conceptually, yeah,” she says, “Obviously there were some _functionality_ aspects-”

“Like, all the murder and torture.”

They’re smiles turn into embarrassed grimaces for a split second.

“... _Yeah_ ,” Edward relents.

“Aside from that, though,” Lydia says, “We tried to embody that feeling. We’d start playing it when anything cool or intense would happen.”

“All three parts?” Keats asks, still nonchalant to a pleasantly surprising degree. He raises an eyebrow. “When did you guys learn how to play?”

“Oh, no,” Edward and Lydia exchange a glance, “We used… illusion magic, basically. A little more complicated than that, but,” he shrugs. They can get into the logistics of the potential uses of Emotion later.

“Ah,” he says, nodding. “Well, I’m not sure how to feel about this.” His words give off a detached condescension in the way they know he learned from them. “On the one hand it’s nice that a lot of of people have heard my songs, but on the other hand it was probably _while they were dying_ , most of the time, so…”

“Yeah okay, we get it,” Lydia says, letting out a short sigh.

“I’m just glad you’re not… completely horrified with us, or anything,” Edward says.

Keats shrugs. “You two have never exactly had a problem exploiting or killing strangers.”

They cringe. “I think that makes it sound worse, actually?” Edward says.

“Oh, it is worse,” Keats says.

They both hang their heads for a moment, and he shakes his.

“We’ll have time to deal with all of that, though,” he says. “For now, I’m just really glad you’re here.”

They smile. After a moment he does the same, and pulls them into another hug.

“Maybe not _here_ here, but,” he says afterword, gesturing around at the prison hall. “Y’know.”

They laugh.

Looking around the hall, the notice for the first time the majority of the cells they can see from here have indeed been emptied. Suppose the Grim Reaper was telling the truth about all of that, then, they think.

They both stop laughing as they remember something else the reaper said.

“What did that reaper mean when he said he’d be watching the time?” Edward asks.

Keats’ eyes widen, like he’d forgotten, too. Then he frowns.

“I probably have to leave soon,” he says, and his voice has a hollow edge to it.

“No,” they say in unison, both of them taking hold of his arms in a somewhat childish, somewhat protective, but mostly panicked gesture.

“I’ll be back,” he says. He tries to smile, but it doesn’t overcome the disappointment on his face.

“When?” Lydia asks. “What’s going on?”

Keats taps his fingers on his knee for a moment.

“Kravitz explained it to me on the way in,” he says. “I’m allowed to come and see you for an allotted time once every material day, starting with one hour, and possibly moving up from that with time.”

He sounds morbid. They tighten their grips on his arms.

 _That’s not fair_ , they want to say, but they really have no right or reason to. Nothing involving them has ever been fair. Their brother’s early death wasn’t, all of the things they did to all those people over the years _certainly_ wasn’t. Fairness is sort of a mute point.

But.

“It doesn’t have to be just once a day,” Lydia whispers.

“What are you talking about?” Keats asks. His expression is wary and preemptively disapproving of whatever they have in mind. They’ve missed that face.

Lydia and Edward exchange a look, then look around at the empty halls, before Lydia continues, “Before you say anything, you should understand that the power we had as liches was… unreal. It was greater than a normal liches magic, it was greater than that Light from the Story, it was greater than _anything_. It must be how the death police were never able to find us before; it allowed to appear as living on the outside, it must have allowed us to appear living to them, too.”

“We weren’t hiding,” Edward adds, “In any way shape or form. We had a thriving advertisement division, actually. That’s the only explanation.”

They pause for another moment, to check again that no one is listening.

Then, Lydia says, “If we had wands, we would have that power back, and we could all be out of here.” She snaps her fingers. “Just like that.”

“It would be so easy,” Edward says. “And then we could all be together again. Forever. Not occasionally, and not on anyone else’s terms.

“And be running some kind of _pain dungeon_?” Keats says.

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Lydia says, “Suffering can manifest itself in all kinds of ways, that was just… the most efficient. We could do something else, and we could do it together.”

Their brother stares back at them with a blank expression.

“...I just got you back,” he finally says, “If it didn’t work, if we got _caught_ , I wouldn’t be allowed to see you anymore!” his voice starts to become frantic. “It’s not worth it!”

“Okay,” Edward says, placating. He and Lydia exchange a look. “Okay. We won’t try anything.”

 _For now,_ they both think silently. He’s right; they just got each other back. But if their sentence in here is really nearly two thousand years…

They can’t say they won’t be bringing the idea up again.

“I know that look,” he says, frowning at them. “I’m serious.”

“We know,” Lydia says, shrugging. He frowns more deeply at them.

“Hey, do you happen to know exactly how long we’re going to be shut up in here?” Edward asks, changing the subject.

Keats frowns at them for one more moment, before shrugging. “One thousand eight hundred and ninety-two years, I’m pretty sure.”

They let that settle on them for a moment.

“Huh.” Lydia clicks her tongue.

“Well,” Edward says, “We have all waited longer than that before.”

Keats lets out a sigh that’s almost a laugh.

“I really missed you,” he says.

They hug him as he starts to tear up again.

“We really missed you, too,” Lydia says, her face pressed into his shoulder.

“Please don’t leave me again,” Keats whispers.

“Don’t worry,” Lydia says.

“No matter what happens,” Edward says, “We’re never going to get separated again. I promise.” He kisses his little brother’s cheek. “We love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says, holding the both of them tighter.

 

And in time, the reaper finds them exactly like he left them. Huddled together, half-crying, and more at peace than any of them have been in more than a millennium.

**Author's Note:**

> I love them so much.  
> A few notes:  
> 1(I deliberated for a while, but decided the kravkeetz theory is not canon to this fic. I'll admit I did take some cues from that theory when I was designing my Keats, but the word of Griffin is that it's not accurate, and I honestly prefer it this way. I love my Keats :'  
> 2(The lady who tried to sell them out is absolutely their circle's leader, who's name I don't think I ever actually mentioned in atwcdwte (It's Cassandra). She was bitter Lydia and Edward managed to turn themselves successfully into Liches when she couldn't.  
> 3(To be clear, I think Lup and Kravitz are both great, but it was fun to write about such fan favorite characters through the eyes of people who just. _Don't_ like them. Or know their names.  
>  4(I got 'Klow' from mashing up the last names of Lydia and Edward's Twitter namesakes (Kash and Anslow)


End file.
